Saturday, March 04, 2006

An interesting housing idea

I suspect the House-In-A-Box concept wasn't developed with survival in mind, but it's still an excellent idea for the survivalist. Based on a standard 20' cargo container, the House-In-A-Box has 2 bedrooms, dining/living space, kitchen and a bathroom, and is prewired and preplumbed. At 900 sq. ft., it's about the size of some of the apartments I've lived in. The inventor claims it can be set up in a week.

I'm not sure if this is actually available on the open market, but the concept should lend itself to implementation by anyone. Buy a shipping container of whatever dimensions you prefer, prebuild the structure in the backyard, then disassemble and haul it to your retreat location. The hardest part will be the wall panels, but a few minutes of thought have given me two options of how to build them, and I suspect that those of you reading can come up with other methods that are better than mine.

One or two tweaks, such as placing a small wood stove in the structure, and you have a survival retreat disguised as a vacation home. Nifty.